Alcoholics Anonymous may prevent murders

Alcoholics Anonymous, the worldwide group that helps addicts stop
drinking, may also help drive down the number of murders in a
community, Canadian researchers report.

As membership in the group in Ontario, Canada, increased
between
1968 and 1991, murders there dropped off, said Robert Mann from the
University of Toronto and Mark Asbridge from Dalhousie
University.

Research has shown there is a significant relationship between
drinking and homicide in Europe, the United States and Canada, they
wrote in their report, published in the October issue of
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

But they found an increase of one AA member per 100,000 people was
followed by a drop of 0.3 to 0.5 per cent in Ontario's homicide
rate.
The relationship was only apparent when it came to men - they did
not find a relationship in the case of women.

"Males drink more often, more heavily and consume more beer and
spirits than females," Asbridge said in a statement.

"Moreover, the nature of the link between alcohol consumption and
violence is more readily a male experience - for example, drinking
heavily in bar settings leads to aggression and violence."

For the study, Mann and Asbridge used Statistics Canada data to
calculate per capita total alcohol consumption as well as murders
of people aged 15 and older from 1968 to 1991.

"Our study showed that total and male homicide rates in Ontario
were strongly related to average levels of alcohol consumption,"
Mann said in a statement.

"These observations confirm previous research showing that alcohol
is a leading contributor to violence, as well as violence-related
mortality."
Asbridge said government officials might want to reduce drinking
rates and, presumably, violence by raising taxes.

"Right now, in Canada, beer is typically taxed at a lower level
than wine and thus is more economical to purchase with respect to
its alcohol content (to) price per volume of alcohol," he said.

"By making beer more costly we might have some aggregate impact on
consumption patterns and, in turn, the negative consequences
associated with its use."